The Feeling of Heaven!
December 1, 2020
Dear Family of Mary!
”Dear children! This is a time of love, warmth, prayer and joy. Pray, little children, for little Jesus to be born in your hearts. Open your hearts to Jesus who gives Himself to each of you. God sent me to be joy and hope in this time, and I am saying to you: Without little Jesus you do not have the tenderness or the feeling of Heaven which is hidden in the Newborn…” (November 25, 2020)
We are in the first week of Advent! And I feel my eyes and my heart turned towards the coming of Christ – with almost double vision. I am looking with longing for the first coming of Jesus in His Birth, remembered so lovingly in our collective memory as Christians, and at the same time gazing with ever increasing yearning for the Second Coming Christ, so powerfully promised by Jesus in the Gospels and the Book of Revelations. I feel the deep need for Jesus to return in His Glory. It overwhelms me at times.
And so, I find myself tearing my eyes away from the disturbing events of this world and fixing them with growing desire upon the Kingdom to come, the Heavenly Kingdom to which Jesus wants to bring us forever.
I want to share with you a short excerpt from a book written by Father William R Bonniwell, O.P. in 1958. I found this excerpt in the Magnificat for November 2020, p. 396. It describes so beautifully this desire I am feeling for Heaven. This is where our eyes should be gazing!
“When we arrive at our Father’s house, it will not be as a stranger…. There will be the resplendent throngs of angels and saints, our truest friends, who so many times interceded to God for us throughout our whole life. But of all this joyous, welcoming throng, there will be one who will give us a welcome that will be unique; it will be the welcome given us by that Mother whom Christ gave us on Mount Calvary, the Blessed Virgin Mary. She will greet us as only a mother can greet one of her children who, after a long and dangerous journey, has at last returned safely home!
“And then, our enraptured eyes will behold the beatific vision! By a special grace, called the light of glory, infused in our intellect, elevating and perfecting it, we shall be able to see almighty God face to face. We shall be transported with ecstasy at the vision of the beauty, glory, splendor, and perfection of the Lord God of Hosts, and beholding the glory of the Lord, we shall be transformed into his very image, from glory to glory, by the spirit of the Lord.
The ecstatic rapture caused by this glorious beatific vision will never lessen, will never vary in its intensity, because God’s ineffable attributes are really and truly infinite, really and truly inexhaustible. Nor can we ever grow tired of gazing at this vision of Goodness and Love because our glorified body will not be susceptible of weariness; it can never grow tired. And so, every moment throughout the endless ages of eternity, every moment we shall be discovering more and more dazzling beauties and perfections in the God of infinite holiness. And in that marvelous vision of the Godhead our restless, unsatisfied heart will at last find perfect peace and perfect contentment, for it shall have finally found what it had been seeking all throughout life—perfect love.” (Fr. William R. Bonniwell, O.P. – from “What Think You of Christ?” 1958)
“There will be one who will give us a welcome that will be unique!” Our Mother, Mary!!! How can we think about anything else? We are the most blessed of children to have such a Mother. Let us allow her to lead us in the Advent – ever closer to her Son. Nothing else matters.
In Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
Cathy Nolan
© Mary TV 2020
PS. Our Team at Mary TV wants to put together a Christmas greeting made up of short videos from you shipmates from around the world. We hope that you can take your phone or computer camera and point it at yourself, and just say Merry Christmas to our Mary TV family, and share something you like about Mary TV or even more about Our Lady of Medjugorje. You can upload the video from your computer or phone to this link, and we will take it from there. Just make sure there is audio, and that we can see you!! Share from your heart! We need to encourage each other this Christmas.
Christina Zubac will receive your video here:
https://www.dropbox.com/request/PIigZj8QdScxDWBvva0G
